Google 'The Ultimate Question' and Fred Reichheld's new book currently comes in at #3. The first two slots are excerpts from the unconventional travel guide, The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, which explains the little-known truth that the Earth is in fact a giant organic super-computer tasked with finding the Ultimate Question (to which the answer is of course, 42).
Fortunately, we now have Fred, which means we now know that the Ultimate Question is 'Would you recommend us?' But does this Ultimate Question (UQ) make understanding the Ultimate Answer of 42, or any other number that pops out of a Net Promoter survey for that matter, any easier?
That's the problem with raw numbers, and some say NPS results; they're of limited diagnostic value. Sort of like your doctor telling you your cholesterol level - but not telling you what do about it.
As the marketing director of a big brand FMCG group kindly pointed out to me recently, he personally couldn't give a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys about knowing his net promoter score; what he wanted to know was what he could do to improve it -- and thereby unlock growth, in order, ultimately, to get a bigger bonus (some marketers do candour).
Now of course, doing well on the UQ all comes down to delivering brand experiences that exceed expectations (the key to triggering recommendations), which is why customer experience management and innovation are key.
Unfortunately for many marketers, optimising customer value (and thereby boosting recommendability) too often falls outside their remit -- marketing today is often synonymous with managing marketing campaigns -- promoting stuff rather than improving it.
So does this mean that the UQ and the NPS are about as useful to marketers as the aforementioned pair of kidneys? No, I don't think so -- because promotion is part of the brand experience.
If your marketing campaigns deliver delight by exceeding expectations, and thereby get talked about, the overall recommendability of your product or service (NPS) should improve. And if this happens, your campaigns will drive revenue growth, and you'll get a bigger bonus.
So with a view to finding marketing-based Ultimate Answers to the Ultimate Question, here's a starter checklist for campaign tactics likely to boost your NPS.
1) R&R Pre-Testing: Send your agency back to the drawing board if campaigns don't score well on 'remarkability' and 'impact on recommendability'
2) Push Buzz Buttons: Use the psychology of buzz -- embed the 6 buzz buttons that increase recommendability into campaign material
- Authority -- as used by expert
- Likeability -- as used by celebrity
- Majority -- the most popular
- Scarcity -- limited edition/offer
- Reciprocity -- helping you to do what you do
- Consistency -- for people who (do what you do)
3) Viralize your Ads: Post your ads online when they pass the FUSE test (fun, unexpected, sexy or exciting), in a pass-along format, just before they go into traditional media
4) Viralize your Ads 2: Use the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guidelines on media contagion -- infectious communications that trigger word of mouth/copycat effect
- Repeated exposure
- How-to information
- Sensationalist language
- Graphic imagery
- Attractive user-imagery
- Results focus
- Simplistic Explanations
5) Digitalize PR: Make sure you add new media influencers (bloggers, webzine editors, forum moderators) as key PR interlocutors -- and post materials to a campaign blog
6) Listen with DM: Add a simple questionnaire to direct marketing campaigns -- by showing you are a 'listening brand', you'll increase recommendability
7) Co-create: Get lead users and prospects involved in producing promotional material -- involvement creates loyal stakeholders only too ready to recommend
8) Up-weight sampling: Re-align your promotional mix in favour of the one tool that most directly drives recommendability -- product sampling
Can you think of any more? Ideas welcome! Please post a comment below.
Blogmaster note: Dr. Marsden is author of Advocacy Drives Growth
Dr. Marsden,
I've just started my own marketing consultancy called Motiv Marketing -- no website yet, but the blog is working: http://sdjams.typepad.com/my_weblog/.
I would like your opinion on the two most recent blogs I've posted...as well as on the following I am writing for magazine publication (it's a bit long, pardon please!).
Thanks in advance for your input!
Best,
Scott Doniger
Marketers: Scratch Your TOE, Not Your Head!
Though often as mystifying and exhilarating, marketing is not rocket science. But marketing is indeed a science and the two disciplines do share some things in common. Physicists who study quantum mechanics, for example, spend most of their lives observing how tiny particles of matter interact and change in response to varying conditions. Marketers, interestingly, do the exact same thing: they study and analyze the characteristics of their atomic equivalents, customers, in response to conditional input -- marketing.
Okay, so this means that my college marketing professor and his physics-teaching counterpart were more like each other than I imagined. Maybe they even drank beers together at the local Ratskeller like Robin Williams and his pompous math professor buddy in "Good Will Hunting". So what does this have to do with smart marketing?
Well, if my marketing professor had any sense, he'd call his pocket-protector-wearing friend today because something's happening in the world of physics that, if applied to the world of marketing, might just signal the holy grail us marketers dream of at night (in addition to dreams about Angelina Jolie in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith").
Here's the story. Physicists are always in serious debate mode. Any profession that seeks answers to questions like "how did we get here?" and "does the universe have an end?" are doomed to endless argument unless the religion card is played and deference is given to an almighty creator.
The vast majority of physicists, particularly since Einstein, rattle each other silly in search of a "theory of everything" — TOE -- a single utterance that explains how the universe was formed, what it is made of, and how it works.
Like many observable occurrences in nature the "theory of everything" (TOE) would be simple (in scientific terms) and elegant. TOE would explain — through mathematics and high-technology testing -- how the four natural forces of nature that lie at the very foundation of the very large and very small work together: gravity, the strong force, the weak force, and electromagnetism.
The theory would provide answers to whether or not the big bang actually occured, and would simultaneously explain why atoms and subatomic particles behave so strangely in relation to larger objects. TOE would work for the largest objects and concepts — planets, solar systems, the universe -- as well as for the smallest — atoms, protons, neutrinos, etc. Einstein pushed this quest forward with unprecedented brilliance, but he was ultimately unable to provide explanations for key pieces to the puzzle, such as the interrelation of gravity and electromagnetism.
So there really is no TOE. Or is there? If Einstein got close to discovering the TOE, String Theory may just get the ball over the goal line. String Theory holds that all matter, as well as all four of the forces of nature, are made of the same things: infinitesimally small, vibrating strands of energy — strings — whose differing patterns of vibration determine the character of the energy and what it does.
Like strings on a violin that make different sounds, these energy strings vibrate in different ways to exhibit different characteristics. Whether we're talking about a baseball, a planet, gravity, or a spec of space dust from Saturn's rings, string theory holds that they are all made of the same thing and it is possible to predict its behavior and determine how it evolved.
Okay, so how does all this relate to marketing? Marketers have been on a similar quest to find the magic formula that does everything: it should explain how to reach customers efficiently, turn them into purchasers, and keep them for life. "Customer-centric" marketing, all the rage for the past couple of decades, broke new ground by explaining how to keep customers happy. "Loyalty marketing", today's hot initiative, provides key strategies for companies seeking differentiators in an increasingly competitive marketplace. But there really is no TOE that explains it all, that works in any environment, for any company. Or is there?
I wrote about NPS — Net Performance Score — in an earlier post. But I did not provide a true picture of the impact NPS could have on what we do. As a reminder, NPS uses research and survey data to provide measures of the percentages "promoters" — loyal customers who indicate a high likelihood of recommending the company or product to friends or colleagues — and compares this number with the percentage of "detractors", customers who indicate they would probably not recommend the company, and are therefore considered more likely to defect.
Smart marketers are using robust data sets to drive marketing decision-making because they provide extreme measurement precision. NPS scores derived from these data sets have become critical to many marketers because they've learned that the higher the score, the greater the probability customers will stay loyal. And, the most effective marketers are analyzing the attributes and characteristics of "promoters" to develop more sophisticated profiles of buyers, buying habits, and the psychographic factors related to "defection". NPS has provided a framework for marketers to develop ultra-sophisticated psychological models of consumer behavior.
Understanding the specific, detailed reasons why some customer feel so good about your brand, product, or service that they would recommend it to a friend or colleague is arguably the most powerful data a marketer can have. This understanding can become the centerpiece for targeting and profiling customer segments, developing marketing communications programs that have meaning, and offering incentive and loyalty programs that provide long-term benefit.
NPS can become the "glue" that binds all marketing activity together with coherence and focus. It can also provide the basis for integrating marketing with sales, business development, research, product planning, and distribution.
Is NPS a true TOE for marketing? If you ask the companies who use NPS as a guiding principle for their marketing they would probably say "yes". Even with NPS as a guiding principle marketers still need to develop the right communications, service, and loyalty programs. While it may be too early to call the race, however, NPS may signal a sea-change for marketers, particularly for those who know well the questions they can't answer.